Tag Archives: alcohol

My liquor cabinet. Seriously, what the fuck am I going to make with 3 different rums, half a flask of cognac, an anise liquer, vermouth, triple sec, a bunch of bitters, and an empty novelty ice tray?

If there is one thing you should know about me it’s that I will never be able to keep a fully-stocked bar. When alcohol comes into my home it tends to be consumed with singular focus until the bottle is empty, and there is rarely any overlap at all between one bottle and the next. This is not to say that I don’t desire a fully stocked bar, because I very much do. I have twelve different kinds of bitters on hand, several bottles of dry and sweet vermouth, triple sec, and a variety of other mixers but the bourbon, gin, vodka, scotch, and whiskey to mix with them seem to disappear as quickly as they came in. Gin always has the quickest turn-around, but once the Beefeater, Tanqueray, or Hendrick’s is exhausted there is little discretion used in the anhilation of the feeble stockpile of any other spirit in the house.

Rum seems to be the one exception to this rule. No matter how empty my freezer may be there always seems to be half a bottle of rum tucked away in the back of my bare liquor cabinet. Maybe it’s leftover from making rum cake at Christmas, maybe my WASP genetic makeup blinds me to it when something clearer and more junipery is on hand. At any rate it’s distilled and at the end of the pay period it’s often in the house. I first discovered El Presidente at the end of a particularly lean month. It was the night before payday and I didn’t have the means to fuel cocktail hour. Barnaby (my roommate at the time) and I sat in the living room and the confluence of evening and Curb your Enthusiasm seemed sadly incomplete without drinks in our hands. Thirsty and destitute we made an assessment of our liquor supply. Two empty bottles of peach schnapps, 1/3 of a bottle of triple sec, about 13 different kinds of bitters, a broken wine glass, two very old bottles of bizarre Romanian cherry wine (which must have been drank one night post-blackout or were incorporated into an unfortunate jungle juice at a party because I no longer have them), a full bottle of sweet vermouth, a scant bottle of dry vermouth, and half a bottle of gold rum were all we had.

Barnaby began counting quarters to go buy a 40 of Miller High Life ($2.25 out-the-door!) at the bodega where we often made fools of ourselves or flat-out insulted the proprietor in our various states of intoxication. I put pride aside and began combing over my bar book for a simple rum drink. Near the end of the chapter I ran across El Presidente. It called for rum, dry and sweet vermouth, triple sec, and an orange twist. My heart racing I looked at the fruit bowl. Two rotten lemons and YES, an orange! I screamed “we’re in business” and washed the cocktail shaker. We took sips and it was, very much to Barnaby’s surprise, totally drinkable. At the end of the night we had killed not only the rum but the dry vermouth and triple sec as well (as we ran out of supplies the proportions began to vary wildly) and we ended up having one of our better parties. Tonight is very much the end of a very lean pay period and instead of hocking something to buy supplies for this evening’s post I’m going to share with you the preparation of El Presidente. If you’re like me and can count on a rogue bottle of rum when your bank account runs low you will find this recipe a gem to be thankful for at the end of the month

Ingredients:

1 1/2 ounces of gold or light rum

1/2 ounce dry vermouth

1/2 ounce of sweet vermouth

1/4 ounce of triple sec

twist of lemon

dash of grenadine

Preparation:

Mise en Place: Assemble your ingredients and fill a shaker half-way with ice

Measure out the ingredients

Pour into the shaker with the ice, add the grenadine if you forgot like I did.

Shake vigorously and pour into a cocktail glass

Garnish with a little twist of lemon and enjoy!